[Slashdot] Stories for 2009-03-14

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Slashdot Daily Newsletter

In this issue:
* TomTom Can License FAT Without Violating the GPL
* Romanians Find Cure For Conficker
* Chinese Subvert Censorship With a Popular Pun
* Beyond Firewalls — Internet Militarization
* MacBook Modded With Second Monitor Inside Logo
* FBI Is the Worst FOIA Performer
* US Adults Fail Basic Science Literacy
* "Spin Battery" Effect Discovered
* How Do Militaries Treat Their Nerds?
* An Interview With the Developers of FFmpeg
* FOIA Request For Pending Copyright Treaty Denied
* Traveling With Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer
* Libel Suits OK Even If Libel Is Truthful
* New Take on Self-Healing Polymer Could Mean Scratch-Free Screens
* Collaborative Academic Writing Software?
* Clear Public Satellite Imagery Tantamount to Yelling Fire
* What Does a $16,000+ PC Look Like, Anyway?
* Microsoft-Novell Relationship Hits the Skids
* How Moore's Law Saved Us From the Gopher Web
* New Graphics Firm Promises Real-Time Ray Tracing

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| TomTom Can License FAT Without Violating the GPL |
| from the ask-a-master-license-delver dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday March 12, @22:59 (GNU is Not Unix) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/0033217 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

dp619 writes "Capped per-unit royalties make FAT licensing agreements
permissible under the GPL, and SD Times has found that Microsoft's public
license policy caps royalties at $250k. If the royalties are capped ��� as
they seem to be ��� TomTom [0]should be able to license FAT without
violating the GPL. And if that is the case ... TomTom needs some serious
explaining to do as to why they aren't licensing FAT. That said,
Microsoft still needs to explain why it just cannot say that folks won't
violate the GPL if they license FAT under its terms."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/0033217

Links:
0. http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2009/03/12/Microsofts-vanished-FAT-license-was-GPL-compatible.aspx

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Romanians Find Cure For Conficker |
| from the cheer-goes-up dept. |
| posted by timothy on Friday March 13, @02:11 (Worms) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/0234213 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]mask.of.sanity writes "BitDefender has released what it claims is the
[1]first vaccination tool to remove the notorious Conficker virus that
infected [2]some 9 million Windows machines in about three months. The
worm, also known as Downadup, exploits a bug in the Windows Server
service used by Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008. It
spreads primarily through a buffer overflow vulnerability in Windows
Server Service where it disables the operating system update service,
security center, including Windows Defender, and error reporting. The
Romanian security vendor said its [3]removal tool will delete all
versions of Downadup and will not be detected by the virus."

Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/0234213

Links:
0. mailto:darren_pauli@idg.com.au
1. http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/279991/romanians_find_cure_conficker
2. http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/273431/amazing_worm_attack_infects_9_million_pcs
3. http://bdtools.net/

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Chinese Subvert Censorship With a Popular Pun |
| from the what'dju-say-about-my-mother-horse-hemp-rebuke? dept. |
| posted by timothy on Friday March 13, @05:20 (Censorship) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/0247240 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Anonymusing writes "In spoken Chinese, 'grass-mud horse' sounds virtually
identical to an obscenity (hint: it begins with "mother-") ��� and as a
cartoon character, it [0]has become an amazing phenomenon. Meant as a
[1]subversive attack on censors, the alpaca-like mythical creature has
[2]led to a cuddly stuffed animal ��� selling over 180,000 in a few weeks ���
and a wildly popular [3]YouTube video with children's voices singing
words that are either [4]completely benign or incredibly offensive,
depending on how you listen." Update: 03/13 09:29 GMT by [5]T : Since
this story was set up, the originally linked video seems to have been
pulled. Searching YouTube reveals that [6]there are some alternatives
available, at least for now.

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/0247240

Links:
0. http://chinadigitaltimes.net/tag/grass-mud-horse/
1. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article5858267.ece
2. http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/03/reform-oriented-national-print-media-join-netizens-battle-against-censorship/
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3tPA_Z_MT0&feature=related
4. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast.html
5. http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/
6. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=Grass-mud+horse&aq

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| Beyond Firewalls — Internet Militarization |
| from the warm-up-the-euphemism-bandier dept. |
| posted by timothy on Friday March 13, @08:32 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/0650225 |
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[0]angry tapir writes "One of the discussions at the [1]Source Boston
Security Showcase has been the [2]militarization of the Internet.
Governments looking to silence critics and stymie opposition have added
DDOS attacks to their censoring methods, according to Jose Nazario,
senior security researcher at Arbor Networks, with international
political situations spawning DDOS attacks."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/0650225

Links:
0. http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/
1. http://www.sourceconference.com/index.php/source-boston-2009/sb2009-showcase
2. http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/280025/political_cyberattacks_militarize_web

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MacBook Modded With Second Monitor Inside Logo |
| from the heart-on-your-sleeve dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, @09:11 (Hardware Hacking) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1153228 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader from the Macmod forum wrote in with this appealing
hack: "This is one of the coolest mods I've seen all year. Mac Moder
EdsJunk submitted this mod to our forums late Thursday night. By cracking
open a MacBook he was able to [0]put a second monitor inside of the
screen. The end result is sweet. The second monitor can make the Apple
logo have any kind of background, like the clown fish, or the flurry
screen saver."

Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1153228

Links:
0. http://www.macmod.com/featured-mods/1933-apple-logo-converted-to-second-monitor

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| FBI Is the Worst FOIA Performer |
| from the mind-the-gap dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, @09:53 (Privacy) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/120229 |
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krou writes "The National Security Archive at George Washington
University has awarded its 2009 Rosemary Award [0]to the FBI for worst
freedom of information performance ([1]PDF of the award). Previous
winners have been the CIA and the Treasury. The NSA notes that 'The FBI's
reports to Congress show that the Bureau is unable to find any records in
response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the
past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a
13% "no records" response to public requests.' The FBI's explanation,
according to the NSA, is that 'files are indexed only by reference terms
that have to be manually applied by individual agents,' and even then,
'agents don't always index all relevant terms.' Furthermore, 'unless a
requester specifically asks for a broader search, the FBI will only look
in a central database of electronic file names at FBI headquarters in
Washington.' Any search will therefore 'miss any internal or
cross-references to people who are not the subject of an investigation,
any records stored at other FBI offices around the country, and any
records created before 1970.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/120229

Links:
0. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20090313/index.htm
1. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20090313/Rosemary_Award_2009.pdf

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| US Adults Fail Basic Science Literacy |
| from the ignorance-can-be-fixed dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, @10:35 (Education) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1323243 |
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[0]TaeKwonDood writes "Do you want the bad news first or the good news?
The good news is that about 80% of Americans think science knowledge is
'very important' to our future. The bad news is most of those [1]people
think it's up to someone else to get knowledgeable. Only 15% actually
know how much of the planet is covered in water (47% if you accept a
rough approximation of the exact number) and over 40% think dinosaurs and
humans cavorted together like in some sort of 'Land Of The Lost' episode.
What to do? [2]Pres. Obama thinks merit pay for teachers makes sense.
Yes, it will enrage the teachers' union, but it might inspire better
people to go into science teaching. It's either that or accept that
almost 50% of Americans won't know how long it takes the earth to go
around the sun."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1323243

Links:
0. mailto:perfectommy@yahoo.com
1. http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/science_literacy_american_adults_flunk_basic_science_says_survey
2. http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1079120.html

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Spin Battery" Effect Discovered |
| from the usual-caveats-apply dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, @11:16 (Power) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1354232 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Miami and at
the Universities of Tokyo and Tohoku, in Japan, have discovered a spin
battery effect: the ability to [0]store energy into the magnetic spin of
a material and to later extract that energy as electricity, without a
chemical reaction. The researchers have built an actual device to
demonstrate the effect that has a diameter about that of a human hair.
This is a potentially game-changing discovery that could affect battery
and other technologies. Quoting: Although the actual device... cannot
even light up an LED..., the energy that might be stored in this way
could potentially run a car for miles. The possibilities are endless,
Barnes said.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1354232

Links:
0. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/uom-uom_1031109.php

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| How Do Militaries Treat Their Nerds? |
| from the permission-to-sudo-sir dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, @11:56 (The Military) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1336206 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Cyber Warfare is a hot topic these days. A
[0]major reorganization may be looming, but a critical component is a
culture where technologists can thrive. Two recent articles address this
subject. Lieutenant Colonel Greg Conti and Colonel Buck Surdu recently
published an article in the latest DoD IA Newsletter stating that 'The
Army, Navy, and Air Force all maintain cyberwarfare components, but
[1]these organizations exist as ill-fitting appendages (PDF, pg. 14) that
attempt to operate in inhospitable cultures where technical expertise is
not recognized, cultivated, or completely understood.' In his TaoSecurity
Blog Richard Bejtlich added 'When I left the Air Force in early 2001, I
was the 31st of the last 32 eligible company grade officers in the Air
Force Information Warfare Center to [2]separate from the Air Force rather
than take a new nontechnical assignment.' So, Slashdot, how has the
military treated you and your technical friends? What changes are
needed?"

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1336206

Links:
0. http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/03/06/new-cyber-cocom-likely/
1. http://iac.dtic.mil/iatac/download/Vol12_No1.pdf
2. http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2009/02/buck-surdu-and-greg-conti-ask-is-it.html

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| An Interview With the Developers of FFmpeg |
| from the in-media-res dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, @12:36 (Media) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1420202 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Following the long-awaited release of
[0]FFmpeg 0.5, Phoronix has conducted an [1]interview with three FFmpeg
developers (Diego Biurrun, Baptiste Coudurier, and Robert Swain) about
this project's recent release. In this interview they talk about moving
to a 3/6-month release cycle, the criteria for version 1.0, Blu-Ray
support on Linux, OpenCL and GPGPU acceleration, multi-threading FFmpeg,
video APIs, their own video codecs, and legal challenges they have run
into."

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1420202

Links:
0. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/10/144222&tid=188
1. http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13589

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| FOIA Request For Pending Copyright Treaty Denied |
| from the let-the-sunshine-in dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, @13:18 (Censorship) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1446206 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Penguinisto writes "According to CNET, Knowledge Ecology International's
[0]FOIA request for information about ACTA was denied. ACTA is the
pending copyright treaty believed to have been authored by lobbyists for
the content cartels. Even stranger, the [1]denial cited 'national
security reasons (PDF). While it is not unusual for the White House of
any administration to block FOIA requests for national security reasons,
one would think that a treaty affecting civil interests alone wouldn't
qualify for such secrecy. Not exactly sure what involvement the former
RIAA mouthpiece Donald Verelli ([2]a recent Obama pick for the DOJ) may
have in this." KEI is not alone; the [3]European Parliament wants to see
the ACTA documents too.

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1446206

Links:
0. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10195547-38.html
1. http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/3/ustr_foia_denial.pdf
2. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10157381-38.html
3. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/european-parliament-to-eu-turn-over-acta-docs.ars

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Traveling With Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer |
| from the halvah-smuggling-device dept. |
| posted by timothy on Friday March 13, @14:02 (Portables) |
| http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/0250226 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Some people care about bags; obsession is a better word. (See the Bags
subforum of the [0]Every Day Carry Forums for evidence.) How are the
straps attached? Is that 1050 denier, or 1600? Makers like Crumpler,
Ortlieb and Maxpedition inspire impressive brand-loyalty, but probably no
bag maker has customers more enthusiastic than Tom Bihn's. (There really
is a Tom Bihn, too -- he's been designing travel bags since he was a kid;
now he has a factory with "all the cool toys" to experiment with designs
and materials.) When I started looking for a protective case for my
MacBook Pro, I discovered that a few of my coworkers were part of the
Bihn Army, and after some Tupperware-style evangelism I was convinced to
buy a few items from the Bihn line-up: a backpack (used); then a
messenger bag (new); then a mid-sized briefcase, used, which is now my
portable filing cabinet. (Take this bias for what you will; I stuck with
[1]my previous messenger bag for more than a decade.) For a
just-completed trip to Israel, which I couldn't quite make in true
[2]one-bag travel fashion, I brought along one of the newest Bihn Bags ���
the [3]Checkpoint Flyer ��� and found it to be worth its (considerable)
price. Read on for my review.

This story continues at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/0250226

Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/0250226

Links:
0. http://www.edcforums.com/
1. http://www.courierbags.com/objects/1.itml/icOid/1
2. http://onebagger.squarespace.com/
3. http://www.tombihn.com/page/001/PROD/700/TB1701

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| Libel Suits OK Even If Libel Is Truthful |
| from the tap-dancing-on-the-slippery-slope dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @14:46 (The Courts) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1542206 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]Defeat Globalism writes to tell us that many journalists, bloggers,
and media law specialists are concerned about a [1]new ruling by a US
Court of Appeals in Boston. The new ruling is allowing a former Staples
employee to sue the company for libel after an email was sent out
informing other employees that he had been fired for violations of
company procedures regarding expenses reimbursements. "Staples has asked
the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling, and 51 news
organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying that the
decision, if allowed to stand, 'will create a precedent that hinders the
media's ability to rely on truthful publication to avoid defamation
liability.' But Wendy Sibbison, the Greenfield appellate lawyer for the
fired Staples employee, Alan S. Noonan, said the ruling applies only to
lawsuits by private figures against private defendants, that is,
defendants not involved in the news business, over purely private
matters."

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1542206

Links:
0. http://www.amerika.org/
1. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/13/staples_libel_ruling_concerns_news_media_groups/

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| New Take on Self-Healing Polymer Could Mean Scratch-Free Screens |
| from the new-screen-just-add-sunlight dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @15:30 (Hardware) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1813208 |
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[0]techprophet writes to mention that a new take on self-healing plastic
could provide a long-term solution to scratched screens. The new polymer,
developed by scientists at the University of Southern Mississippi,
[1]uses UV light to reform bonds between molecules rather than embedded
healing agents of similar systems. "At the core of their design is
polyurethane, which is an elastic polymer that already has decent scratch
resistance. To enhance its ability to withstand mechanical damage, Ghosh
and Urban added two more components, OXE and CHI. OXE has an unstable
chemical structure (a four-membered ring containing three carbons and one
oxygen) that makes it prone to being split open. CHI is UV sensitive. The
idea is that, if the polyurethane gets damaged by a scratch, the unstable
ring structure of OXE will open to create two reactive ends. Then, UV
light can trigger CHI to form new links with the reactive ends of OXE and
thereby fix the break in the polymer."

Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1813208

Links:
0. http://slashdot.org/~techprophet/
1. http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/a-polymer-that-can-fix-its-own-scratches.ars

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Collaborative Academic Writing Software? |
| from the but-shouldn't-academics-be-good-at-learning-new-things d|
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @16:12 (Education) |
| http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1925238 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Thomas M Hughes writes "Despite its learning curve, [0]LaTeX is pretty
much the standard in academic writing. By abstracting out the substance
from the content, it becomes possible to focus heavily on the writing,
and then deal with formatting later. However, LaTeX is starting to show
its age, specifically when it comes to collaborative work. One solution
to this is to simply pair up LaTeX with version control software (such as
[1]Subversion) to allow multiple collaborators to work on the same
document at one time. But adding subversion to the mix only seems to
increase the learning curve. Is there a way to combine the power of LaTeX
with the power of Subversion without scaring off a non-technical writer?
The closest I can approximate would be to have something like [2]Lyx (to
hide the learning curve of LaTeX) with integrated svn (to hide the
learning curve of svn). However, this doesn't seem available. [3]Google
Docs is popular right now, but Docs has no support for LaTeX, citation
management, or anything remotely resembling decent formatting options.
Are there other choices out there?"

Discuss this story at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1925238

Links:
0. http://www.latex-project.org/
1. http://subversion.tigris.org/
2. http://www.lyx.org/
3. http://docs.google.com/

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Clear Public Satellite Imagery Tantamount to Yelling Fire |
| from the daily-dose-of-unbridled-stupidity dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @16:59 (Government) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/2014232 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

TechDirt pointed out a recent bit of foolishness as a followup to
California Assemblyman Joel Anderson's push to force Google and other
online mapping/satellite companies to blur out schools, churches, and
government buildings. When pushed, apparently his justification was that
leaving these buildings un-obscured [0]is the same as shouting fire.
"News.com ran an interview with Anderson, where he attempts to defend his
proposed legislation as a matter of public safety. He claims that there
is no good reason why anyone would need to clearly see these buildings
online, and that it can only be used for bad purposes. [...] Apparently,
Anderson is the final determiner of what good people do and what bad
people do with online maps."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/2014232

Links:
0. http://techdirt.com/articles/20090312/0353514089.shtml

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| What Does a $16,000+ PC Look Like, Anyway? |
| from the half-the-cost-was-windows-server-liceses dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @17:04 (Hardware) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/1958238 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]justechn writes "Tom's Hardware has an article about custom PC maker
Puget Systems, who had just finished a [1]custom $16,000 PC for one of
their clients. So what exactly goes into a $16,000 system? How about:
Four quad-core Opteron processors, 32 GB of memory, Windows Server 2008,
Asus Xonar DX PCI Express sound card, 3Ware 9550SX-8LP SATA 3 Gb/s RAID
controller, Two Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor hard drives in RAID
1, Two 1 TB Samsung SpinPoint F1s also in RAID 1, and Four 1 TB Samsung
SpinPoint F1s in RAID 5. Puget went with MagiCool's Xtreme Nova 1080
radiator, Nine 120 mm fans, Four Koolance CPU blocks, Koolance combined
pump and reservoir unit, and Cooler Master Stacker 810 case. In addition
to all that hardware, it also runs very quiet and very cool. The
temperature of the CPUs is 36 C at idle, 45 C at load."

Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/1958238

Links:
0. http://www.justechn.com/
1. http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/495-puget-systems-extreme.html

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Microsoft-Novell Relationship Hits the Skids |
| from the what-your-community-told-you-long-ago dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @17:43 (Novell) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/2032239 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Anonymous writes "According to Channelweb, the bloom might be off the
rose in the Novell-Microsoft relationship: the two companies [0]didn't
sign a single, solitary large customer to a Novell Linux deal during the
most recent quarter. 'So Novell, one of the biggest Linux distributors in
the world, and Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in world history,
couldn't find a single large customer on Planet Earth to buy into
Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server software. Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian
has stepped up and, rather than point fingers at Microsoft for that
performance, put the blame on his company and its inability to strengthen
its reseller channel.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/2032239

Links:
0. http://www.crn.com/software/215900219

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| How Moore's Law Saved Us From the Gopher Web |
| from the bring-back-gopher dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @18:27 (Networking) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/2039205 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]Urchin writes "In the early 1990s, the World Wide Web was a
power-hungry monster unpopular with network administrators, says Robert
Topolski, chief technologist of the Open Technology Initiative. They
preferred the sleek text-only Gopher protocol. Had they been able to use
data filtering technology to prioritize gopher traffic Topolski thinks
the [1]World Wide Web might not have survived. But it took computers
another decade or so to be powerful enough to give administrators that
option, and by that time the Web was already enormously popular." My geek
imagination is now all atwitter imagining an alternate gopher-driven
universe.

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/2039205

Links:
0. http://www.newscientist.com/
1. http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/03/how-moores-law-saved-the-web.html

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| New Graphics Firm Promises Real-Time Ray Tracing |
| from the can-render-vaporware-in-no-time-flat dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 13, @19:11 (Graphics) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/13/216219 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]arcticstoat writes "A new graphics company called Caustic Graphics
reckons it's [1]uncovered the secret of real-time ray tracing with a chip
that 'enables your CPU/GPU to shade with rasterization-like efficiency.'
The new chip basically off-loads ray tracing calculations and then sends
the data to your GPU and CPU, enabling your PC to shade a ray-traced
scene much more quickly. However, the company adds that 'if you've ever
seen them demo their solutions you'll notice that while results may be
fast ��� the image quality is underwhelming, far below the quality that ray
tracing is known for.' According to Caustic, this is because the advanced
shading and lighting effects usually seen in ray-traced scenes, such as
caustics and refraction, can't be accelerated on a standard GPU because
it can't process incoherent rays in hardware. Conversely, Caustic claims
that the CausticOne 'thrives in incoherent ray tracing situations:
encouraging the use of multiple secondary rays per pixel.' The company is
also introducing its own API, called CausticGL, which is based on
OpenGL/GLSL, which will feature Caustic's unique ray tracing extensions."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/13/216219

Links:
0. http://www.russell-crow.com/
1. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/03/12/caustic-promises-real-time-ray-tracing/1

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